Celine

Establishing an excellent record as a missing-persons tracker who specializes in reuniting families to make amends for a loss in her own past, Celine searches for a presumed-dead photographer in Yellowstone, only to be targeted by a shadowy figure who would keep the case unsolved. By the best-selling author of The Dog Stars.

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Heller's novel The Painter was a real disappointment after the great work he did with Dog Stars. The characters in Celine are even thinner and the back story more disjointed. Suspension of disbelief proved impossible. It looks like Dog Stars might have been a fluke which is a real shame.

Young women, I hope we all agree, should be able to find the occasional superwoman heroine in various entertainment genres. So it is only just that seniors such as myself should be able to enjoy Peter Heller's private investigator Celine. Even if Celine's talents and nerve (and luck) strained my ability to "suspend disbelief" somewhat. However, Heller's style is so unique and the novel so beautifully written that I won't quibble, I'd prefer to just enjoy.

I read this book in a single night fascinated by Celine and the cast of characters. I love the sweet relationship with her taciturn husband, who tries to sneak vegetables into her diet. In some ways this feels like picking up a mystery book in the middle of a series- you want to know about the cases that Celine has solved before, the story of her first marriage, where she learned her spy craft, gun skills, etc. More than anything the reader hopes that Celine will solve the mystery that hangs over her own life- the whereabouts of her lost daughter.

Well, I am going to disagree with the majority here. The plot is good, the characters believable and one attaches to them. But the way Heller provides the background of each character is so clunky. It's like when you see a good play but the lead character has overdone his make-up. The wrinkles are too etched and can be seen to be false from the audience; the costume just 2 degrees too cute. It made the book sophomoric to me. Some writers create the background with such subtlety that it the same way a person notices things. This was not that. This was a wet towel swatting you in the face with Celine's wealth, background, dress, etc etc ad nauseam.

Quotes

Celine, my new novel, was a bit different, and very special, because it is about my mom. She died two and half years ago, and I think I wanted to spend another year with her. Like the protagonist she was a crack investigator who specialized in reuniting birth families. Like Celine, she could shoot—the scene in Idaho with the gun dealer when she blows seven cans and bottles off the log is true—and she really did bring in a bank fraud perp for the FBI—after spying on him with her opera glasses, and executing a high speed car chase in her old Volvo. She really was courageous and elegant, and the family backstory in France during the war is all true. I tried to write her as closely as I could.

The book, I guess, was a coming home for me. As writing fiction was, after so many years as a journalist.

-- Peter Heller, From an interview published online by Amazon Book Review March 2017.